Support Center

Al Jazeera not working

Derek
Aug 18, 2013 09:29PM EDT

I'm trying to access Al Jazeera streaming from Australia however it seems to be redirecting me to the new Al Jazeera America website automatically. Switching my DNS back to non-Unblock-Us servers allows me to stream as per normal.

Are there plans to add a region switcher for Al Jazeera similar to what you've done for Netflix, or at least disable the redirection for non-US based users?

We are constantly trying to add more services to Unblock-Us. We take our entire customer base into consideration when we decide to add support for a site. However, there are many factors that go into being able to do this with our service. It’s not something that can be done immediately and this all takes time. But I will certainly add this to the list for review for future.

Unfortunately, we have no support for that site. Our service only works for streaming of video from the sites that we support. For everything else, your true location will be shown as well as your identity.

But I have forwarded your request to management. They will see if it is possible to include for review.

The problem is I'm not in the US so my true location isn't be shown. I'm in Australia, but I'm being redirected to the US site automatically when using Unblock-Us DNS. When I switch to regular DNS servers I'm not redirected, so it doesn't have anything to do with my location, it has to do with Unblock-Us doing some kind of redirection for Al Jazeera.

Could you please send me the exact url of the of the site you can usually access and of the one you are being redirected to, and I can pass this issue on to our tech team to look into.

If you are using a Windows PC you can temporarily “turn on” or “turn off” our DNS by using our Easy Setup App ( http://www.unblock-us.com/unblock-us.exe ). This way you will be able to access the correct site while we look into the problem.

I'm in Canada and I'm having the same problem as Derek. I have the unblock-us DNS set up on both my wireless server and on individual devices (Macbook and iPad), so switching away from the unblock-us DNS is a bit of a hassle.

The site we normally access for Al Jazeera English is www.aljazeera.com, but this is now being redirected to america.aljazeera.com (Al Jazeera America). With the unblock-us DNS settings, the Al Jazeera English site "detects" that we are in the US and redirects us to the Al Jazeera America site.

As a non-American, I am more interested in the standard Al Jazeera English service than the Al Jazeera America service.

We have made some changes to try and fix this issue, so are you still being redirected to Al Jazeera America?
I order for us find out the issue here our tech team have ask for a screenshot showing the error and also the exact url you are trying to watch. Could you also please try this in a different browser and see if you are still getting the same error.

We have not been able to reproduce this error, we have tried in 2 different locations using our DNS so it is proving slightly difficult to figure out the cause.
Could you please try clearing your browser history, cache and cookies. Then type in the address www.aljazeera.com and click on watch now. Do not use any links, shortcuts or bookmarks.

I'm having the same problem as those above. While I can now access the Al Jazeera English website, I cannot play the videos on it, including the live stream. However, Al Jazeera English's live stream does work on YouTube for me.

The message I receive when trying to play a video or the live stream from their website is as follows:

"The video you are trying to watch cannot be viewed from your country or location"

I am in Canada, running Mac OS X Mountain Lion and my internet browser is Safari. I tried clearing the cookies and cache and the problem persists.

Clearly this is happening because they think I'm viewing from the US. Due to an agreement between Al Jazeera and the American cable companies, Al Jazeera has stopped allowing American residents from viewing the live stream and video clips from Al Jazeera English in exchange for the cable companies agreeing to carry the new Al Jazeera America channel.

I hope a solution for us non-American residents can be found... thanks!

I'm have both 208.122.23.22 and 208.122.23.23 in my DNS settings. When I change it to Google's public DNS 8.8.8.8, it works fine. I'm sending a screen shot through the "E-mail Us" field on this site under the subject heading Al-Jazeera Screenshot.

I'm no longer able to even browse to www.aljazeera.com. Some site content loads after a minute or so, but most doesn't. I've confirmed this behaviour on two different computers using different browsers. It loads ok if I switch to Google's DNS servers.

Are you having any problems with any other sites that we support?
If you are please make sure you visit our website to update your IP address if you see this message – http://screencast.com/t/i3iOq51g

If you are not having problems with any other sites we support please could you try clearing your cookies and cache, then type in the address www.aljazeera.com and click on watch now. Do not use any links, shortcuts or bookmarks and let me know if you are still having the same issue.